Undying Worms

Ewww, worms!  

One of the most often quoted proof-texts for endless torment is Christ’s thrice-repeated statement “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44, 46, 48).  Many contend this unmistakably refers to eternal conscious torment.  Undying worms and unquenchable fire portend immortal souls and endless agony.

While orthodox traditionalists repeatedly present this as confirmation of their view, they simultaneously wiggle out of the worm actually being a worm.   As mentioned before, those certain the fire is unquenchable seriously doubt it's really fire, and those sure the worm is undying are just as sure it’s not a worm.  Go figure!  They do.

So will it surprise you that worm means, well… worm? Yes, a slithery slimy slider.  It is the Greek skolex, a carnivorous maggot that feasts on a rotting carcase.  Advocates of perpetual pain use smoke and mirrors to turn this worm into an immortal soul, imperishable spirit, immaterial conscience, immutable memories, or immitigable remorse - anything but a creepy crawly that would be evidence of death and means of destruction.  But I am convinced Jesus meant this literally - worms and all.

  

I’ve heard this phrase referenced a bazillion times, but never, not once, did anyone reveal its source. It was an eye-opener for me to discover Jesus was quoting scripture.  For years I had no idea that the phrase is from the very last verse of the book of Isaiah (66:24): “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”

Did you know Jesus was quoting Isaiah?  Christ’s listeners would have readily recognized the origin of the repeated phrase.  To Jews, Isaiah is one of the most beloved and familiar books of the Old Testament.  It is quoted fifty-five times in the New Testament, more than any other except the Psalms (68). It was the scroll from which Christ read in the synagogue when he began his public ministry (Luke 4:17-21).  The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from Isaiah when Philip the evangelist joined his chariot (Acts 8:27-30).

Like so many vintage photos of the grisly carnage at Gettysburg, the context of Isaiah 66 pictures the ghastly aftermath of a battlefield littered with carcases of the slain (vv. 16, 24).   The passage says the wicked “shall be consumed together” (v. 17), but that the seed and name of the righteous shall remain “as the new heavens and the new earth” (v. 22).  Whether Isaiah 66 is speaking directly of a temporal earthly judgment, or the final one, (or both) it is the context of the phrase “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”  And it clearly pictures death, not torment.

It is inconceivable to me that Christ would quote a familiar phrase from a well-known passage, and use it to convey something entirely different from the obvious meaning of its context. What would you think of a preacher who would take as his text a verse that speaks of something limited in duration and final in result, but then use it out of context to deliberate on something without end?

Graphics and grammar inform our interpretation. “Their” is a pronoun; a pronoun has an antecedent (previous word or words that the pronoun replaces); the antecedent in this case is “carcases of the men that transgressed.”  “They (another pronoun) shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”  Who shall be an abhorring unto all flesh? Carcases of the men that transgressed!  Whose worm shall not die?  Whose fire shall not be quenched?  Carcases.

So how is it that an expression speaking of dead bodies became a mantra for undying souls?  It’s a classic case of creed (endless torment) versus read (worms and fire destroy carcases).  Even if “their worm” and “their fire” are figurative, to be true to the figure they would illustrate death and destruction.  It’s the isolation of the phrase that allows it to be misinterpreted in order to conform to the established dogma of timeless torture.

The clear message is that it is better to enter into life missing a body part than your whole body to be cast into hell where both soul and body will be destroyed (“it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell”- Matthew 5:30, Cf. 10:28).  The doctor says "To save his life we have to amputate his leg."  Better to lose the leg than lose the life.  That makes perfect sense, and that is the plain sense when understood in its context and original source.  

But in my background this phrase was monotonously quoted without the context of its contrast “to enter into life” (Mark 9:43, 45).  It is this contrast that Jesus emphasized three times: it is better to be maimed but enter life; halt but enter life; missing an eye but enter life, than to have two hands, two feet, and two eyes, but be cast into hell - better that one member should perish, not the whole body. Life versus hell.  He doesn’t say enter “heaven”, or “bliss”, or “joy.”  He says enter life.  The options are opposites: life or hell. 

It runs parallel with everlasting life or perish (John 3:16); eternal life or death (Romans 6:23); hath life or hath not life (1 John 5:12); everlasting life or shall not see life (John 3:36); narrow way to life or broad way to destruction (Matthew 7:13, 14); life everlasting or corruption (Galatians 6:8); book of life or second death (Revelation 20:14, 15).  Thus, it is life or loss of it.

And that is consistently clear and clearly consistent with the Bible’s comprehensive coherency on the subject of the final fate. The relevant texts teach a final destruction, a complete consumption by fire, in which unbelievers die, perish, and cease to be.  

Some traditionalists unwittingly embrace universalism by their theological hocus pocus.  I asked one unsuspecting friend, “So you believe death is eternal separation from God in hell?”  He agreed.  Check.  “And you believe the worm is the soul?” Indeed, he did.  Check.  “So since the worm dieth not you believe the soul will never be eternally separated from God?”  Uh, what?  Checkmate.  Incredible how easily defenders can slip back and forth between plain definitions and creedal counterfeits!  

It’s wholly smoke to take adjective phrases (dieth not and never shall be quenched) modifying destructive agents (worm and fire) and confuse them with what will be destroyed.  It is their worm that is undying, not them. They're already dead (carcases).  It is the fire that is not quenched, not them.  They're "consumed together" (66:17).  For the very reason that their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched, they will assuredly be consumed, destroyed, die, and perish.  The worm devours and the fire consumes.  If their devouring worm does not die, they surely will.  If the consuming fire is not quenched, they will certainly burn up in it.

So the plain meaning is their worm does not die, but continues to eat the burnt corpse until it is consumed. The fire is not quenched, but continues to burn until it reduces the rotting flesh to ashes. The observations of physical science tell us that even if it is impossible for worms to get inside a sealed casket, there are enough worms in our own bodies (their worm) to consume our decaying corpses from the inside out.  

Job uses an illustration from nature to describe how the grave consumes the body: “Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so doth the grave those which have sinned” (24:19).  Drought (no water) and heat (their fire?) consume the snow waters, so doth (in a similar fashion) the grave those which have sinned."  Thus lack of water and presence of heat expedite the consuming process.  Job continues, "The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered" (v. 20). The heat consumes and the worm feeds.

It is also known that dead bodies give off a detectable heat as they decay, and tracing that heat through infrared sensors is a means of locating a hidden corpse.  Their worm and their fire describe destructive agents that consume the carcases of the slain of the Lord. 

In Isaiah 66 this detail of undying worms and unquenchable fire is a close up of a bigger picture: “The Lord will come with fire… to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire” (v. 15) to show “his indignation to his enemies” (v. 14) who “shall be consumed together” (v. 17). Consumed, not tormented.  This grotesque description of the gory results of the “fire and sword” (v. 16)  depict a battle scene that uses language of the final judgment.  Such a picture reveals an ultimate punishment that ends in final consumption and complete destruction, not endless torment.  And it is the text Christ used to warn his listeners about the fire of hell.

But commentators kill the undying worm!  They can't let a worm eat away at their endless theory, so it can't be a worm.  Ellicott is confident:  “Well-nigh all Christian thinkers have seen in the gnawing worm, the anguish of an endless remorse, the memory of past sins” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers). 

St. Bernard was one of them: "the worm that never dies is the memory of the past, which never ceases to gnaw the conscience of the impenitent" (Pulpit Commentary). 

“Victor and Theophylact interpret them as the gnawing reproaches of conscience and the memory of shameful things done in this life” (Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges). 

Matthew Henry has no doubt: “Doubtless, remorse of conscience and keen self-reflection are this never-dying worm” (Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary). 

 

The great Gill expounds: “by their worm is meant their conscience; for as a worm that is continually gnawing upon the entrails of a man, gives him exquisite pain; so the consciences of sinners, bringing their sins to remembrance, filling them with dreadful anguish and misery which will never have an end” (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible). 

Barnes isn’t so sure: “It is not to be supposed that there will be any ‘real’ worm in hell - perhaps no material fire; nor can it be told what was particularly intended by the undying worm. There is no authority for applying it, as is often done, to remorse of conscience, anymore than to any other of the pains and reflections of hell.”  But yet he is certain “it is a mere image of loathsome, dreadful, and ‘eternal’ suffering” (Barnes’ Notes on the Bible).  It's no real worm, but it is eternal suffering.

The Biblical illustrator oxymoron-izes: “The language is indeed figurative.”  Coffman disagrees with Isaiah: “Worms and fire, in nature, do not exist in the same place” (Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible). Trapp insists: “As out of the corruption of our bodies worms breed, which consume the flesh; so out of the corruption of our souls this never dying worm” (John Trapp Complete Commentary). 

Come again?  What is the worm?  “That is one of the easiest questions in the word of God,” radio evangelist Oliver Green reveals. “The ‘worm’ is the part of the sinner that will never burn up, never cease to exist, but will be tormented forever and forever!   The worm cannot burn up. Sinner, if you die in your sin and wake up in hell, YOU will never cease to burn. YOU will never cease to exist. YOU are the worm!!!” (italics and caps and punctuation all his).

There you have it- you are the worm, or at least that part of you that is indestructible.  Now wasn’t that easy?  Maybe all-caps and exclamation marks make scriptural proof unnecessary.  What all of the above have in common is the complete absence of any Biblical support or even an attempt at it.  Wholly Smoke!

If the emphasized contrast in Christ's warning  of life or loss of life in hell, and the graphics and grammar of his quoted material from Isaiah were all we had, it would be sufficient to believe a worm means a worm. But this is no lonely fish bait. While we have no scriptures using worms to represent souls, spirits, the conscience, memories, or remorse, we can open a whole can of worms from many other grubby texts that classify the limbless larva as means of elimination, not agents of agony.

Anticipating imminent death (“the graves are ready for me”), Job laments, “I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.  And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?  They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust” (Job 17:1, 14-16).  

Yet the despairing Job finds hope in resurrection after the worms do their consuming work: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27).  

He acknowledges death as the destiny of all men: “They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them” (Job 21:26).  The descriptive words Job connected to worms (corruption, pit, dust, destroy, consumed) speak of death and destruction.

And worms eat kings. The king of Babylon: "Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee… they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave…  the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee" (Isaiah 14:9-11).  Here "hell" is no torture chamber- worms are the wardens of this prison of death.

King Herod: "And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them.  And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.  And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost" (Acts 12:21-23).  Like something out of Hitchcock, "Herod's Horror"  is a midnight movie starring those monstrous man-eating maggots.  Eww!

In another passage, it's moths and maggots.  "For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation" (Isaiah 51:8). It's an Old Testament John 3:16-like contrast of "perish or have everlasting life." 

I dug up all these worms to prove the Bible has an entire exhibit of the hungry diners of death.  Why deny their existence and purpose in the phrase “their worm dieth not”?  The worms are a fact; eternal torment, a fiction.  If the emphasized contrast of Mark 9 and the context of Isaiah 66 are acknowledged, the smoke will clear to reveal worms- real worms- feeding on the dead and devouring an endless interpretation.